Day 25 - Piles for Garage and Decks

During this wonderfully sunny day, we were able to finish all the sheeting on the second storey floor.  Despite the small area left to finish, it took a bit of time since it was an area that required a fair number of cuts to the plywood to get the sizes right.  But, we finished it off before the day was done and I even swept the entire second floor clean.  We are ready to start building walls on Monday when the supplies arrive.

The most exciting part of today was watching the steel piles for the garage and front and back decks being driven into the ground.  There is a couple of options for piles under a garage or deck - you can do large concrete piles or steel piles.  We decided to go with the steel piles.  It was an interesting but simple process to watch. 

Under the decks, they pushed in 16' long steel piles that were 3 1/2" in diameter.  They are held in place simply by the force of gravity and friction.  They are pushed in with a track hoe in a short order of time.    Using a laser level, they ensure each pile is pushed in to the exact correct depth and then, depending on if it was going to be under the garage or under the decks, there were different parts welded on the top. Under the garage, they pushed in 32' piles to ensure it will hold the weight of the garage and the second storey above it. (I will add photos of the finished piles tomorrow since the photos I took today didn't end up on the camera card due to some malfunction.)  It only took them a couple of hours to do all 20 piles and now we are ready to build our garage.

As usual, the kids watched every move the guys made.

The one gentleman even suggested we have a picture taken on the track hoe.  Mom and the kids, he said.  So mom and the kids did.

It was so great to have the sun shining all day and we look forward to all the sunshine tomorrow and for the next several days.  Mostly I look forward to all the work we will accomplish tomorrow!  On this journey, every day is an adventure!